Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-10-09
MICHAEL DAvITT.
People and Crops i'm the ssDis.
tress Area.,,

ACHlLE lSLAkD. I
Coast of May @, Ireland ,septem ber0, ,loe7.S
The condition OF the people an
prospects of the harvest in thes
Western Islands and along til
adjacent seaboard are subjects ,
anxious interest to the leaders of tn
national movement about this perio
eve ery year. These districts embrac
what is known as
THE DISTRESS AREA"
The population is the poorest, tn
soil the least productive, and til
landlordism the most burdensom
and relentless in all Ireland. In tn
best of seasons the inhabitants of TIN
coast line OF the Atlantic, iron
Donegal to Cape Clear, are but a fey
degrees removed from actual want
Their small patches of unclaimed
mountain or "cut-away" bog land ar
exposed to the storms and wet wind
of the ocean. The rains along thu
entire west coast are heavier ant
more frequent than obtained any
where else in the country, and al
here is no timber to offer shelter tt
growing crops the labor of the sprins
months and the hopes of the harves
season are often destroyed by a few
weeks drenching rain in July ol
August. But, fortunately for this
district, this year has been the dries
which ireland has experience for the
last twenty years, and while this has
resulted in a poor harvest Of hay
barley, oats, turnips and other pro
duce on the best lands, elsewhere
soil resting upon a limestone forma
ton, where excessive heat absOrbi
too rapidly the moisture necessary tt
vigorous cereal growth-the long
dry summer has had an opposite
effect upon the spongy soil of these
humid western regions. There IS
therefore,
A BETTER YIELD
in quality and quantity in the crops
of the Atlantic seaboard this season
than in any year of the past decade
and this agreeable circumstance re-
lieves the heads of the national move
ment of their annual fears touching
the state of the tenant and cottiel
classes in the district OF periodical
distress.
The generous people of the South
and of AL parts of the United States
have often come to the rescue of these
half-etal wing Islanders. Hundreds OF
lives would have been lost in this
populous Island of Achill a few years
ago had funds not been promptly and
generously subscribed from abroad to
save them. These appeals for charity
are humiliating in the extreme, and
are never made in behalf of our peo-
pie without feeling of national
shame. To be relieved of this disa-
greeable necessity, therefore, has a
corresponding satisfaction, and We
are furthermore gratified this year to
knowthat while the poorest OF our
people have an exceptionally good
food harvest, the landlords are certain
of poor rent. harvest. The highest
rent-paying lands have suffered most
from our unusually hot summer, and
the tenants of these lands being better
able to struggle against the exactions
of the landlord garrison than the i'm
poverished western cottiers, we are, in
this respect, better equipped for our
annual winter campaign than we have
been for the past few years.
Still the rent problem is susceptible
of an easier solution in the west than
in other parts Of Ireland and for this,
as we'll as for many kindred reasons,
the condition of the people in this
province is always
A SUBJECT OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE.
1t is also historically an intensely in
teresting part OF the country. The
Celtic race was at one time confined
that is, driven into this province.
Oliver Cromwell's thoroughly Saxon
policy of ''to He'll or Connaught" made
these wild western regions the refuge
of the Irish nation, whose mountain
Businesses and storm-guarded islands
became effective barriers against
ultimate conquest. In very recent
times the West was the birthplace of
the Land League movement. Land
lord oppression has already been felt
more bitterly here than in any other
portion of Ireland, and it was but a
natural sequence that a people so
ground down by rack renting should
be among the first to revolt against
that code of plunder. In no other
part of this long-oppressed province
has there been such poverty and per-
secution as the inhabitants of this
Island of Achill have had to endure.
Originally driven from the northwest
of the country During the penal
times), they have scarcely had any
respite from tyranny and want until
the present day. The island itself
was designated a "borslieve," or wild
mountain. by the ancient VIZ ters, and
has borne for long period the repu-
tation of an Irish Siberia, but very
much to the injury, in the matter of
comparison, to the Asiatic region OF
that name. The mountains are bleak
and barren, while the belt OF land
which follows the sea line round the
indented island, is swampy bog
which nothing but incessant industry
will keep from going back to its
original savage and unproductive con-
dition. Needless to say that the value
of such land, from a rent-paying
point of view, would be practically
nothing if left to the sole occupation
of the island landlords. The six or
seven hundred families who now COM
pose the population Of Achill have
given to the sCil Of the island what
ever value it possesses yet two land
lords have succeeded in levying an
annual rent tax of some fifteen OF
twenty thousand dollars upon the in
dustry of those who have reclaimed
such land.
1t is not in rack-renting alone
however, that these primitive islanders
have been made to suffer in modern
as in olden times. Achill has beer
the chief seat of
THE PRosILYTIzING MISSION
of Connaught. 1t was the poores
part of that long-affiicted province
and the people of the island were
e,olooto1 a q tho 90 aiact tO pprsuq1a II